


A Very MI6 Christmas

by HooperMolly



Category: James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HooperMolly/pseuds/HooperMolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Christmas Eve and a few of MI6's best agents have a small get together to celebrate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very MI6 Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by the lovely Sophia.

It was late on Christmas Eve and most of the staff had gone home. 

Only a few of them would be coming in tomorrow, a skeleton staff comprised of only those necessary to keep everything running. 

The only people left, at least on this floor, were a few of the higher-ups; M, Q, Tanner, Moneypenny, Robinson and for reasons that weren’t immediately clear to half the room, Bond. 

If anyone really thought about it, there was no reason for Q to be there either since he hadn’t been included in the short memo, but no one had objected when he’d shown up with a couple of bottles of red and wearing a lumpy mistletoe and holly patterned sweater. 

“What is that?” Tanner had remarked when he caught sight of the uneven woollen garment. 

“Did your mother knit it for you?” Bond quipped, his eyes shining with amusement. Only Q’s eyes moved to meet Bond’s. 

“Yes. She did.” He replied without a trace of sarcasm or embarrassment in his voice. 

“It’s nice.” Robinson commented, barely glancing up from the bottle of scotch he was in the process of opening. 

Moneypenny echoed the sentiment while M’s face remained completely unreadable, almost as though he was bored by the dullness of proceedings. 

The phone in the corner of the meeting room that they were using as a temporary dining room slash gathering place rang and Moneypenny got up to answer it out of habit. 

“Meeting Room 7.” She answered briskly. She listened intently for a few seconds, before replying. 

“Someone will be right down.” The receiver clicked lightly as she replaced it. 

“That was security. Food’s here. Who’s going to get it?” The way she glared at everyone in the room told them that there was no chance it was going to be her, so the men began to glance among themselves while all carefully avoiding M’s eyes. 

“Oh no. If I leave the room then all the Christmas cheer will go with me.” Tanner protested when he noticed all eyes had converged on him. 

He pointed to his head where a set of reindeer antlers sat proudly. 

“Only if you take that with you.” Bond said, nodding his head towards Q and his festive knit. 

Q’s mouth twitched slightly but that was the only indication that he’d heard a thing that Bond had said. 

“And that.” Bond added, switching his gaze to the small tree clad in purple tinsel and silver baubles that glittered merrily in the centre of the table. 

It was the same one that had been sitting on the corner of Tanner’s desk for the last few weeks. 

When no one gave any sign of moving, Tanner threw his hands up in surrender. 

“All right, I’ll go. I don’t understand why you can’t just tell them to bring the food up, M.” M gazed over at Tanner from his seat at the head of the table, a curious expression on his face. 

“That would be against protocol Bill.” Tanner’s eyes widened. 

“Looks like Mallory’s hungry, Tanner.” Moneypenny said, flashing him a wide smile. 

She was still standing near the phone and gave the impression of a viper poised to strike, her right hand held slightly aloft in case the phone rang again. 

The sharpness of her reflexes was enough to intimidate anybody. Even Bond had been impressed the afternoon he’d come in from the first sprinkling of snow and tried to show off by tossing his hat onto the hatstand in the waiting room for M’s office. 

Moneypenny, who had been in the process of closing the drawer to the filing cabinet beside it, had reached out and snatched the hat out of the air without even turning around. 

“He has got a point you know.” Robinson said after Tanner disappeared from the room, his antlers drooping slightly. 

He slid a glass of scotch across the table to M, who stopped it and brought it to his lips in one swift movement. 

“I have to agree. It seems utterly ridiculous to trust security with keeping unauthorised personnel out of the building yet insist on not trusting them to walk mail or bloody food to the upper floors.” 

Two pairs of blue eyes met across the table, so intense that it seemed to add weight to the very air. 

“I’ll keep the concerns of Tanner and yourself in mind at the next security review.” M said coolly, allowing a small smile to pass over his face. 

Ever since taking over the position, M had been showing less and less warmth and humour. If he thought you’d earned it though, he was just as playful and snarky as he had been before. 

Robinson and Moneypenny glanced at each other, smiles etched on their own faces before Moneypenny finally decided it was okay for her to settle back down in her seat on M’s left side. 

Robinson poured another few glasses of scotch, letting Moneypenny take one before offering the other to Bond, who declined with a shake of his head. 

“No thanks, I’ll have the wine.” 

Q leaped into action at that, grabbing one of the bottles before realising he didn’t have glasses or even a corkscrew. 

“How can you be so brilliant with a computer yet forget something as basic as a corkscrew?” Bond teased. Q’s lips pressed together. 

“I got sidetracked.” He said stiffly as M withdrew a pocket knife from his trousers and tossed it over the table. Robinson slid a couple of the scotch glasses over. 

“You can use these if you aren’t fussy.” Bond glanced down at them, shrugged and passed them across to Q. 

Q didn’t look nearly so indiscriminate. He glared down at the glasses as though he could transfigure them with the power of his mind. 

When they failed to bend to his will he made a small noise of disapproval and set about uncorking the bottle. 

“You’ve got to push harder, it’s cork not polystyrene.” Bond chided as Q twisted the screw gingerly, as though the bottle might explode if he applied too much pressure. 

“I’ve got it.” 

“If you don’t have enough strength in those bony little arms of yours, I can do it.”

“I said I’ve got it.” Q fired back, the metal finally slicing down into the cork. 

Bond opened his mouth to respond but he was interrupted by the arrival of Tanner and food. Plates materialised on the table and the tree was banished to the corner of the room. 

“What’s that?”Bond asked, pointing at something white on skewers.

“Chicken sticks, satay skewers minus the satay.” Moneypenny replied, immediately going for one of the containers with curry puffs in it. 

Bond’s eyebrow raised.

“What’s the point of getting them then?”

“Some of us don’t have the luxury of consuming peanuts without going into anaphylactic shock.” M said, reaching over and grabbing a couple of the sticks.

“Sorry sir.” 

There was more food on the table than they had a hope of eating so there was no need to go slow. Plates were piled high and no one bothered to try and save anything for the others.

A few minutes and a quick trip down to the staff room to fetch some cutlery and a few wine glasses later, everyone was seated comfortably and eating with various levels of finesse.

“How did you find out about this anyway Q?” Moneypenny asked as she picked up one of the half a dozen curry puffs she’d loaded onto her plate. 

Q stared at her, his eyebrow giving the impression of being raised quizzically despite staying where it was. 

“I’m your Quartermaster. I read all memos between the upper ten percent that aren’t flagged as private or top secret.” When he noticed that everyone at the table had turned to look at him he hurried to take a sip of wine. 

“I asked M for permission.” He added matter-of-factly. All eyes turned to M. 

“I told him not to read flagged emails. What did you think the flagging system was for in the first place? Did you all forget that our Q Branch is capable of bypassing some of the strictest security protocols in the world? If you didn’t think they could read your emails then you oughtn’t be in this line of work.” M declared. 

There was an awkward silence as no one wanted to be the one to reply to that. 

“What about you 007? Why are you here?” Q asked evenly in an attempt to turn the conversation away from himself or his branch. 

Bond stopped stabbing at pieces of pork long enough to glance up at Q. 

“It’s Christmas.” He replied. 

Tanner and Robinson exchanged looks and busied themselves with eating. Q looked slightly thunderstruck. 

“This is Christmas.” He said softly. 

“Yes, it’s bloody Christmas.” Bond snapped back.

It was easy to forget that Bond didn’t have a life outside of MI6. There was no partner, no children, no parents or siblings. Even some of his older, closer friendships like those with Leiter or Tanner or Robinson were all founded through work.

The room fell quiet, the only sounds were the gentle clink of fork on plate.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense.” Q murmured as he stared determinedly at his glass of wine.

“It’s fine.” Was all Bond said in reply.

“Better than last year, isn’t it James?” Robinson said, when it looked like they were going to plunge into silence again.

“Well I’m not being shot at so I suppose ‘better’ would be fairly accurate.” Bond agreed.

“Hold up, you were shot at last christmas? I haven’t heard this story.” Moneypenny said, sitting a little straighter in her seat.

“It wasn’t anything exciting, just a couple of Russians I was tailing. They were drunker than I’d thought they were, took a turn I didn’t expect and spotted me as I doubled back.” Bond replied dismissively.

“Not exciting? You ended up setting fire to the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree.” Tanner exclaimed.

“You what?” Moneypenny asked.

“Never happened. You can’t prove it did.” Bond said, suddenly seeming very interested in his food.

“It made the headlines.”

“He’s lying to you, don’t believe a word he says. Our Chief of Staff is a chronic liar.” 

“Around the world.”

“It wasn’t even a big fire. It was more of a smoulder.” Bond admitted.

“There was an inquiry.” Tanner said in exasperation.

“Was there?” Bond seemed honestly surprised by that.

“Yes.”

“Well I assume they didn’t charge me with anything since I don’t recall going to jail or paying a fine.”

“It was deemed accidental.” Robinson explained. There was a moments pause before Tanner burst out laughing.

“The kids thought it was great. I’ve never seen them watching the news so happily before.”

Any tension that had built up as Bond and Tanner bickered vanished and they fell into easy conversation for the rest of the meal. Tanner produced a beer, apparently from thin air, while Q and Bond worked their way through one bottle of wine and started on a second. 

Moneypenny glared at Q until he reluctantly agreed to help her clear the table. When they came back fifteen minutes later they found the four men they’d left behind deep in an animated discussion about The Great Escape.

“Ramsay is clearly the superior character.” Robinson said heatedly.

“Seriously? There’s a reason Hilts is the biggest character in the film Charles.” Bond replied, slouching lazily in his chair.

“Have we been watching the same film? Blythe is far more interesting than Ramsay or Hilts.” Tanner said, waving his beer around for emphasis.

M took a sip of his scotch and reclined back in his chair, absorbing everything that was going on.

He was often like that, quiet and contemplative. Though he could be rather lively if the mood struck him. It had struck him fairly often lately, if office rumours about him and a certain member of parliament were true.

“Remind me to never watch The Great Escape with any of you.” M said, stretching. “Should we exchange presents now?”

“Presents!” Q exclaimed, leaping from his chair in a paradoxically elegant baby giraffe like fashion, limbs never looking quite in or out of control as he dashed from the room. 

“Do you think he’s ducking down to Debenhams?” Robinson asked as he pulled his own set of neatly wrapped gifts from out of his briefcase. 

Moneypenny looked down at her own wrapping efforts, which weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, but appeared poorly done compared to Robinson’s precise job. 

“There we are, we now have evidence that you are actually a robot.” She remarked as Bond stood up and disappeared from the room. 

“Where’s he going? Surely he hasn’t forgotten to buy anyth- oh my god Tanner.” Moneypenny’s eyes widened in shock as she caught sight of the garish, lumpy parcels that Tanner was pulling out of one of the cupboards. 

“The kids wanted to wrap them.” He explained, as he grabbed one package that may at one point have been yellow paper but it was possible that it was just yellow tape smothered in more yellow tape. 

It was decorated with a purple ribbon that appeared to have been stuck to the present with even more tape. 

“You could have helped them.” Moneypenny said, breaking into a wide smile. 

“I did, until they decided it would be fun to turn Dad into a present. I ended up with my whole torso wrapped in an entire roll of paper and then Willa took advantage of the paper being in front of my eyes and managed to find duct tape somewhere.” 

Moneypenny, Robinson and M all burst out laughing at that. 

“It’s not funny. It took twenty minutes before they stopped giggling hysterically and went and got their mother to cut me out. I had to threaten to tell Santa Claus!” 

“Tell Santa Claus what?” Bond’s voice was muffled by the large squarish present he was carrying in front of his face. 

He’d clearly had it professionally gift wrapped. It was in the same generic red paper with gold trimmings they always used at stores. 

“That my children are guilty of false imprisonment. Who’s that for?” Tanner asked, trying and failing not to stare. 

“All of you actually.” Bond replied as he eased it down onto the end of the table. 

He walked back to his seat, almost concealing the pain he was feeling in his back. 

“Are we expected to share? Because I should warn you, I’ve never been good at sharing.” Q said as he walked in the door clutching at several small boxes. 

“Jewellery, Q?” Robinson asked, brow furrowed. 

“Not just any old jewellery, it’s very special jewellery.” Q replied, adding to the now sizable pile of presents on the table. 

“Oh Q, I know you like Tanner but you can’t propose to him. He’s already married and I just don’t think he feels that way about you.” Bond quipped. 

Q didn’t dignify the remarks with a response. 

“Who’s going first?” Robinson asked, as everyone settled back into their seats.

“I want to know what that is.” Moneypenny said, pointing at the large box.

“Go ahead, you open it.” Robinson replied with a sweeping gesture towards the gift. Moneypenny stood up, a wide beaming grin on her face, and hurried around to the other end of the table.

The paper tore away with little difficulty, revealing an expensive looking coffee machine. Moneypenny let out a cry of delight and hugged the box. Bond smiled.

“A little bird told me that the machine in your staffroom broke and we all know what maintenance is like around here.” He said, clearly pleased with her reaction.

“I think this is the best present you’ve ever given me 007.” Tanner said, trying to read the box without leaving his seat. He leaned forward, squinting slightly. On the other side of the table Bond withdrew a small envelope from his breast pocket and slid it sideways to Q.

“What’s this?” Q asked, frowning slightly as he looked down at the paper.

“Your present. Your workspace is in an entirely different part of the building so you aren’t going to be getting much use from the coffee machine.” Bond replied.

Q carefully ripped through the flap of the envelope and pulled out a slip of paper.

“A gift voucher for a tailor made suit?” He queried, glancing up at Bond.

“So you have something decent to wear that isn’t another one of your bloody awful cardigans.” Bond told him.

“That isn’t fair. I don’t insult your fashion choices.” Q objected before adding a sincere “thanks.”

“My turn?” Moneypenny asked, grabbing her presents without waiting for a response and passing them around. 

“They’re not as extravagant as Bond’s but I promise you that I love you more than he does.” She said as everyone began to open them. Most of the men discovered a bottle of cologne. 

“How on earth did you know which brand I use?” Robinson asked, staring down at the bottle of Calvin Klein in his hand.

“I have excellent sensory perception my dear Charles.” Moneypenny replied, tapping her nose. Bond was still staring down at his present. 

“Well this brings back memories.”

“Pleasant ones, I hope.”

Bond lifted the straight razor gently out of its box.

“Some of the best.” He said, flicking it open and testing the weight in his hand.

“I can’t help but feel that something is going on here that the rest of us are missing.” Q said, glancing from Bond to Moneypenny and back again. Bond simply smiled and set the razor back in its box.

It was decided that Tanner’s gifts would be opened next.

“I think we’ll need that razor to get through this.” Robinson joked, as they all turned their presents about trying to find an opening in the tape. By the time they did manage to get to the actual gift bits of tape were scattered across the table, as well as sticking to fingers, clothes and somehow Q’s glasses.

“Oh yes! Thanks Bill!” Robinson said happily, when he finally reached the Middlesborough kit protected from the onslaught of tape by a thin layer of tissue paper. 

“You don’t actually wear that to the game do you?” Bond asked, quickly thanking Tanner for the camera lens he’d just received.

“Oh you bet your arse I do.” Robinson replied, holding it up to his chest. Bond burst into laughter. 

“What can I say? Boro’s in my blood.” Bond threw a wadded up chunk of paper and tape at him.

Robinson’s presents got handed around next, cufflinks and a book for each of the men while Moneypenny got a pair of earrings with her book.

“Where are your gifts for everyone M?” Moneypenny asked when she realised that the only gifts left to pass out where Q’s.

“Check your bank accounts.” M replied. A few murmurs went around the table, and Q moved to get out his phone before Bond stopped him. 

“Not this second.” For a moment Q looked like he was going to argue but thought better of it.

“I suppose it’s time for my gifts.” He said, rising from his chair to pass them out. Tanner, Robinson, Moneypenny, and M received matching watches that were fitted with radios that enabled the sending and receiving of voice communications as well as an emergency distress beacon.

“It’s a nifty bit of equipment Q, but we already have phones and earpieces.” Robinson said as he examined his watch.

“Earpieces tend to be rather obvious and your phone isn’t attached to your wrist.” Q replied. “Besides, only someone else with one of those watches will be able to contact you.”

Bond had also received one of the watches in addition to a pen. He eyed it suspiciously.

“What does it do?” He asked. Q looked at him impassively.

“Who’s to say it does anything? It could be just an ordinary pen.” Bond shook his head.

“It could be, but it isn’t.” Q smiled.

“If you twist it open you will start a time. Small explosive charge, nothing that will do widespread damage although with you widespread damage does seem rather inevitable.” The others started laughing at that, not bothering to attempt to stop when Bond glared at them.

“Give it up Bond, he’s right.” M said drolly. Bond continued to glare a few seconds before he too broke into laughter.

“I assure you it isn’t intentional. So, shall we clean up all this paper and have one last drink?” Everyone murmured their agreement and the paper was stuffed into the bin in the corner as glasses were refilled.

“Merry Christmas everyone.” Bond said, raising his glass.

“Merry Christmas.”


End file.
